• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-31
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• 2004

This paper has revisited the dative alternation in English, and defended the so-called polysemy view. The paper has argued for a particular format of lexical representation, one that allows reference to events. In addition to the semantic conditions, the paper has argued that the DO and PO constructions also allow for different information structures.

• Language and Information
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.51-68
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• 2005

This paper proposes an informational approach to the dative alternation in English following up on the Stochastic Optimality- Theoretic (OT) model by Bresnan and Nikitina (2003). While Bresnan and Nikitina's stochastic OT model resolves the crucial problem of 'gradience' unavoidably implicated in variation phenomena by applying the notion of probability to linguistic problems, it fails to account for the details of the unusually alternating examples, which normally would not alternate. More importantly, it fails to capture the focus effect involved in the alternation. This paper has worked out all the problematic examples by modifying the Bresnan and Nikitina model. This new account captures not only the unusual behavior of the less-alternating verbs and idioms but also the special focus effect of the common alternating verbs.

• Language and Information
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.77-96
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• 2007

This paper investigates syntactic variations in English such as Dative Alternation, Particle Inversion, and Object Postposition (Heavy NP Shift) within the framework of Optimality Theory, and shows that the same set of morphological, informational, and processing constraints affect all these variations. In particular, it shows that the variants that used to be regarded as ungrammatical are in fact used fairly often in reality, especially when processing or informational conditions are met, and therefore, grammatical judgment may not be always categorical but sometimes gradient. It is argued that the notion of distance in constraint ranking in stochastic OT can effectively explain the gradience and variability of grammaticality in the variation phenomena.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.36
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• pp.271-291
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• 2014

In this paper, we maintain that case makers '에e' and '에게ege', and '에서eseo' and '에게서egeseo' are not two separate morphemes but are simply allomorphs of the same morphemes respectively. When '에e' and '에게ege' are used as a dative marker, they show exactly the same semantic function and are in complementary distribution in relation to the semantic features of their preceding noun; that is, if the preceding noun is an animate noun, '에게ege' is used and '에e' is used if not. Also, '에게서egeseo' and '에서eseo' as ablative and locative case makers show exactly the same semantic function and show complementary distribution depending on whether the preceding noun is animate or non-animate. Therefore, we assume that these markers are semantically conditioned allomorphs.

• Language and Information
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.39-56
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• 2009

This paper investigates ordering alternation phenomena in Korean using the dative construction data from Sejong Corpus of Modern Korean (Kim, 2000). The paper first shows that syntactic weight and information structure are distinct and independent factors that influence word order in Korean. Moreover, it reveals that heaviness and givenness compete each other and exert diverging effects on word order, which contrasts the converging effects of these factors shown in word orders of right-branching languages like English. The typological variation of syntactic weight effect poses interesting theoretical and empirical questions, which are discussed in relation to processing efficiency in ordering.